19/09/2011
After leaving the Stuart Highway at Three ways Roadhouse we set off across the Barkly Tableland along the Barkly Highway, to our first stop. …….you guessed…the Barkly Roadhouse, that was last night. Today we have driven 450K’s to Mount Isa, crossing the border into Queensland at the not very interesting town of Camooweal. We could have stayed the night there but I wanted to get the boring part of the journey over with. The Barkly Tablelands cover an enormous area, just getting across from Three ways was 650K’s. 650K of the most featureless, flat prairie you could imagine, just the odd scrub bush dotted here and there. It’s cattle country, though God knows how they get the beasts fat on this scrub. Their drinking water is pumped from boreholes into manmade lakes, about the most interesting thing we had to look at. We reckon we could have more fun studying a Formica topped table!
Mount Isa is a busy mining town, with a very fine Irish Club, we will stay a couple of nights we think.
20/09/2011
Mount Isa is surrounded by the Selwyn Ranges, typical red rock formation, which is a pleasant change from the last 2 days in the savannah. They mine copper, zinc, lead and silver and Mount Isa is famous as the birthplace of Pat Rafter and Greg Norman, and some other people we have never heard of. According to the tourist brochure there are some places of interest to look at but we just shopped and then swam in the camps Olympic sized swimming pool…….well it’s the same depth.
We are giving the Irish club a miss as we are saving our strength for another days dash across country, need to be in rugby territory at the weekend.
21/09/2011
Much more interesting scenery as we trundle out of Mount Isa. Undulating hills and a road with bends. A winding road that is a bit narrow for a major highway, which makes you focus your attention when a big road train comes lumbering at you, or overtakes you. Roadtrains can be up to 55m long, a unit and 4 trailers which takes some time to overtake you even when they are travelling at 110kph.
There aren’t too many towns on the way across this part of Queensland, Cloncurry being one of them, another mining town, rich in copper. After that it was back to the flat boring savannah, grazing for cattle and not much to look at.
We are camped for the night at Julia Creek, a small town with a pub, to which we have paid our respects!
22/09/2011
To give you an indication of how flat this part of Queensland is, as we left Julia Creek we picked up the Cloncurry to Townsville railway line. It runs parallel with the road, not 20m away, and is on the same level. 390K later it’s still there, we haven’t left it’s side all this time, generally trains don’t do hills. We will be happy when this part of the journey is over (tomorrow.)
Another thing we had forgotten about Queensland is the condition of it’s roads. They are pretty awful, narrow and full of holes and botched repairs. We had 2 long waits at the “Stop/Slow” man where they were repairing a stretch at least 2K long.
We have parked up in a lovely small caravan park in the tiny community of Pentland, and until a few minutes ago we were the only folk here. Just us and the bird life, grass and flowering trees. Very pretty. It’s close to the road but there usually isn’t any traffic at night. We could stay longer but……..must get on!
Notable things we have seen in the last 3 days; several flat kangaroos, half a million cattle, 2 sheep, 4 emus and a camel.
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